This invention relates to a cartridge for applying curled-finger ring-type edge binders to prepunched paper for forming a booklet, and more particularly, to a cartridge which carries binders and cooperates with an office-style binding apparatus.
The use of plastic curled-finger ring-type edge binders for forming booklets with prepunched materials is known. One class of equipment is the office-style punch-and-binding machine as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,122,761; 3,125,887; 3,227,023; 3,793,660; and 4,645,399. These machines are used to apply ring-type edge binders to prepunched sheets (usually paper) so as to form bound booklets. The ring-type edge binder includes an elongated spine having a plurality of curled fingers spaced therealong. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,970,285.) Each finger has one end integral with one edge of the spine and the other end of the finger is free but resiliently engages the other edge of the spine. In prior art machines the binder was held in a comb and L-shaped machine fingers were manipulated to engage the binder fingers and to spread them from the spine so as to open the binder for fitting of prepunched sheets onto the opened fingers and then to close the fingers so as to form the booklet by binding the sheets together with the edge binder.
German Patentschrift 830,636 and German Offenlegungsschrift 2 362 440 disclose a hand-operated tapered editing device which is axially inserted into the end of a binder for spreading the fingers. A U.S. Pat. No. 2,234,045 shows a tapered hand-operated opening device.
In recent developments an improved insertion tool and portable system has been developed for opening a binder and binding a booklet. See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,900,211 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 346,918 filed May 1, 1989.
In some circumstances, as in an office, heavy-duty, faster and more flexible machines or apparatus are desirable. In order for such binding machines to be effective, they should employ a replaceable binder system from which booklets of different thicknesses and different colors can be formed and bound. This requires the selective use of different diameter and/or different color edge binders. This in turn creates the need to adjust the apparatus in relation to at least the diameter of the binder being used.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a binder delivery system which is suited for use in forming a booklet and which cooperates with an office-style binding apparatus.
Another object of this invention is to provide a binder delivery system which signals the apparatus so it can adjust for the type of binder to be delivered.
These and other objects of this invention will become apparent from the following disclosure and appended claims.